Mike Suarez says he's having the time of his life as citywide member of the Tampa City Council, and is hoping local residents feel the same and grant him a second term in office next March. The West Tampa native and insurance professional defeated Curtis Stokes in the District 1 race in 2011, and is a strong favorite to repeat. He's currently opposed by Seminole Heights activist Susan Long.
Supporters of Suarez sipped on Chardonnay and beers as they enjoyed the brilliant views atop the Beck Group's rooftop deck in Tampa Heights Tuesday night, as the 50-year-old councilman kicked off his 2015 campaign with friends and family, including Mayor Bob Buckhorn , Hillsborough County Commissioner Kevin Beckner and former Commissioner and mayoral candidate Ed Turanchik.
Suarez says he intends to talk about the things that he's worked on as a council member the past 3 1/2 years, such as transportation, neighborhoods, redevelopment, and how does the city get more people to live in the downtown urban core.
By nature of his chairmanship at HART (as well as his membership on the MPO), Suarez has become a leader in speaking about transportation in Hillsborough County. And issues affecting the transit agency have put him in the crosshairs of some major officials in 2014, including some on the Hillsborough County Board of Commissioners, who at one point this year appeared poised to (along with the mayors of the three cities in the county) take over HART, based on a recommendation made by County Administrator Mike Merrill through discussions with the Policy Leadership Group.
Merrill subsequently pulled back from that decision once it appeared that it would get in the way of the group's bigger plans: offering a transit referendum that would go on the ballot in 2016 to pave the way for the construction of a light-rail system.
But last week Merrill downplayed that aspect of the plan, saying "I don't think the referendum is going to refer to any specific mode."
"Talking about a specific mode of transportation, people get very angry about one or the other — either not having it, or having too much of it, " Suarez said Tuesday night. "I think we have to have a real conversation about what multi-modal means."
Name-checking Guillermo Penalosa, the renowned liveable city advisor who as former Commissioner of Parks in Bogota initiated the “new Ciclovia," which Tampa put on last month, he said it's important to emphasize a walkable city.
"It's not all about a bus or train. It's about how people want to get from one place to another. Trains should be in the discussion. It's an important part of it. Maybe it's not holistic, where we have trains in every part of the city or every part of the county, but it has to be part of the discussion."
In his short speech to the crowd of well-wishers as he stood with the Hillsborough River to his back, he emphasized how the city was being transformed by all of the activity taking place in that area.
"It was a place to work," he said of what the river used to be back in the day. "It wasn't a place to live or play. And without people like Beck making a statement about being here in the Tampa Heights area when there was nothing, now we have Ulele, we have the great Water Works Park over here, we have things happening. Without those pioneer spirits, we wouldn't be where we're at today. We are a city on the move."
Suarez looks to be in good shape as he prepares for a re-election run, with perhaps the only obvious blemish being his initial comments earlier this summer that he thought that 2016 was too soon for a transit tax referendum, a stance he almost immediately walked back.
He also needs to be in the discussion as a possible successor to Bob Buckhorn, where speculation has already begun amongst some political junkies — assuming Buckhorn wins next year and serves until 2019 (the results from next week's gubernatorial election might change those plans, however). But Suarez was playing it cool on Tuesday night, saying that he has a rule on such speculation.
"If you concentrate on the job you have, any job you may want in the future will come much easier. That's the way I look at it. I'm running for City Council. That's all I ever talk about."